Saving a Sacrifice
by Bellajewels
Summary: Killian Jones was dying, to save his love. But perhaps when love is involved death isn't the end.


He remembered the moment he saw her. Staring down at him, laying under a pile of strategically placed bodies. For her it was a moment. For him it was THE moment. If real life ushered in love with fireworks they would have gone off behind her because from that first moment his eyes locked on her he was hers. He didn't acknowledge it right away and he fought it with everything in him. To love her was to be disloyal to the woman who had come before her. He had loved others with his body but his heart and his soul had always held his past love in that untouched position. She was his world and then he saw Emma. Brave, honest, and willing to fight for what she believed in at any cost. He was adrift at sea in her eyes and he could not find a way to save himself. After a time he stopped wanting to. He was always more at home on the sea than anywhere else anyways.

So he fought beside her and he fought for her and that was how he got to where he was. Bleeding, laying on cold cement as rain pelted his dying body. There was no war. He had done as he had always planned to do. He was dying for love and for that reason he was satisfied. She was going to be restored and she would move on. He could go easily knowing that she was back to the brave, honest, and unflinchingly strong woman that he had fallen in love with. His eyes opened, pain making its way through his body. Death wasn't going to come easily but things had never come particularly easily to him. Her face hovered above him, the white gone from her hair and the life back in her eyes. He had had dreams of her eyes looking at him with that life there again. Now though her eyes were brimming with tears and he could see the pain that a breaking heart causes. He had been in her place before. Watching the one you love die was never easy. "Emma. Love. It's okay."

"It's not okay. I'm back and you're leaving. This is not okay."

"It is love. It's right. I told your father once that I would follow you to the end of the world or time. I know when it's time to leave you though love. Where I go you cannot follow." Pain shot through him as he spoke, his face contorting into a grimace. He tried to hide it, not wanting her to hurt anymore than she already was. "I didn't say the words Emma but you knew didn't you?"

"I knew. Every day. Every minute."

"Then this is all I've ever needed. To love you and to have you love me back. I rest a happy man."

"Can't you fight? A man unwilling to fight gets what he deserves. Isn't that what you've always said?"

"I have fought love. And I have won. You are back to yourself and you will be with your son. There is nothing I want more for you and if my life is what it takes to achieve that then my life I freely give. It has been yours all along. I loved you from the first moment I saw you and I will love you until my last." His breath faltered and instinctively he knew that his time was drawing to a close. Summoning the strength for a final word he breathed deep. His eyes drank her in, looking their last. Wherever he was going he wanted to take the image of her restored to her glorious self with him. "Emma, kiss me. Please. Let me leave this world kissing the one I've loved more than anything." She leaned down and placed her lips on his, praying for a burst of magic to heal him. His lips moved beneath hers and his hand, which had been laying limp at his side, came up to frame her face. As she removed her lips and went to gaze into ocean blue eyes his hand fell, and those eyes that she loved so dearly fell closed. His breathing ceased and she felt a pain like nothing she had experienced since she lost Henry coursed through her body. Anyone who said that heartbreak wasn't physical had never truly experienced it.

She threw herself on his lifeless body, burying her face in his chest. From behind her she heard movement but paid no attention to it. Time ceased to exist as she lay there, collapsed on top of him. After what seemed to be no more than a moment but forever all at once a head reached under her arm to pull her off. "Emma, Emma you have to get up."

"No, he is here because of me and I will not leave him."

"We need to get him up. Take him to the crypt. Emma, he's not gone." She sat up, tears streaming down her face, and anger surging through her. "Regina, how can you say he's not gone. He's dead. Surely you can see that." Belle stepped forward, a book in her arms as usual. "Emma, ever since you were consumed by the darkness we've been researching how to get it out of you. Killian with us. His sacrifice was genuine and his soul is gone but within the confines of the Dark One curse he is not irrevocably gone. We can bring him back."

"How do you bring back the dead?" She looked at those around her and prayed that they were right. Regina was the first to speak. "By going to the underworld and getting him. But Emma you have to understand it's very dangerous. The underworld is not a place to be taken lightly. It's hell down there. Literally."

"I don't care." He turned to her father and reached out for him. There had been such distance with her parents and now all she wanted was to collapse into her fathers embrace and have him tell her that everything would be okay. "Dad, he told you that he'd go to the ends of the world for me. You know I have to do the same for him right? You understand?"

"Of course. And we'll help you. We're family, Killian included, and we will always find each other." A new resolve settled on her as she moved back to Killian's side, running her hand along his brow. "Rest well my love. We're on our way. Your family is on their way."


End file.
